10 Weird Museums to Visit This Summer

Bailey Rydell basically wins the summer job lottery when her dad sets her up with a job at the Cave, the local tourist-trap museum mansion full of collections of antiques and oddities. Bailey would probably disagree, though, and consider it a terrible summer job. She not only has to sit in the sweaty Hotbox and sell admission tickets, but also has to put up with Porter, another museum employee who knows exactly how to get under her skin. But can working at the Cave really be all that bad when it’s made up of rooms full of fake mummies, Victorian medical equipment, aquariums, and circus tents?

You can read more about Bailey’s adventures working at the Cave in Alex, Approximately (we have an extended excerpt available until April 17). If you’re looking to check out some real museums that are just as bizarre and cool as the Cave, take a look at the list below and let me know which museum you would want to spend your summer stuck inside!

1.The International Museum of Cryptozoology – Spending an entire summer here seems necessary. How else are you going to figure out if mermaids are real or if there’s a bigfoot lurking in your backyard? Plus think about all the epic photo opportunities.

2. The Hammer Museum – Apparently there are a couple different hammer museums. One is a gallery displaying contemporary art and exhibitions, while the other one is exactly what you had imagined—a building full of over 2000 hammers! Sure, the one in California might have air conditioning, but I bet it doesn’t have a Tlingit warriors pick.

3. The International Banana Museum – Does a room stuffed full of smiling yellow fruit sound aPEELing? Of course it does! Go bananas looking at banana staplers, ties, soap, record players, and more!

4. The Kazoo Museum – If you’re kazoo-challenged like me, then a few months of attempting to play these confusing instruments should get you right on track.

6. The International Spy Museum – By the end of summer, you’ll have picked up some awesome espionage skills, and then you can sneak in or out whenever you want.

7. Cancun Underwater Museum of Art – For those who want to enjoy contemporary art without having to be stuck inside all day, this museum requires you to take a glass bottom boat or scuba dive down to view over 500 life-size statues located underwater.

8. The Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments – You’ll definitely never get bored here. You also probably won’t be able to eat or sleep after seeing contraptions like the skullcracker or thumbscrews, but it seems worth it.